Ability to Move an Issue

Question

For a project, I have set up different worfklows with each issue type except for two that share a worfklow.

The ones where they share a workflow, I don't get the option to move it on the edit screen.  I only have this option if there is no other issue type sharing the workflow.  However, I would like this to be an option that appears in edit because it's not intuitive to the user to figure out how to move it since it's a separate action vs being available in the edit mode.

Does anyone know if there is some configuration that would allow this verbiage to appear for all issue type edits when there are more issue types avialable than in the drop down so that the behavior is consistent. Or, do I have to ensure that every issue type has its own workflow to do this?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Ah, good, that does make sense.

The thing you've run into here is that Jira can't cope with a "simple" change of issue type by just changing the "field" of "issue type".  It's because ALL of the configuration is hung off the issue type, so when you change issue type, it has to check the validity of absolutely everything that might break.

There's a bit of simple code, as you've seen, that says "if it's a simple change of issue type where workflows and fields won't need to be checked, then go ahead and allow it", but anything that triggers any chance of having to check compatibility will force the user to use the "move" process, because that's the only process that has all the code to do those checks and prompt you for the necessary updates and answers it needs as it does the checks.

The message is there only once because Jira is trying to be clever - it only appears when there's no issue types you can swap to.  I tend to agree with you in that the message should always appear (except when ALL issue types in the project are valid targets), so that users can see when it offers 3 out of the 5 issue types, they don't keep asking us admins "where are the other two?"

I don't know how to fix that unfortunately.  The code code needs hacking, but I'm not sure where.

In the mean time, I add descriptive text for issue-type to warn the users.  Seems to help a bit.

K Kelly · Answer

Well, I have to use the Move transition to change the issue type, even though I am not actually moving it to a different project.  When I select Move, I select the new issue type, but the project is the same. I'm then presented with fields on the new issue type that I can input values to.

I've trying to figure out how I can have that sentence that appears in this image, where it references moving the issue.  This is at least in front of the user during edit and only seems to appear if no other issue types have the same workflow. I would like for this message to appear at all times where there are other issue types setup for the project, but they are not available.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

I'm not sure I understand the question - do you really mean "move" the issue (i.e. to another project and/or issue type), or do you mean "change the issue type during edit"?  (Because there's a known weakness there)